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1995, 2000s: Just who are the unquiet dead and who will listen to their voices?
The Unquiet Dead
What you need to know before your trail
Policing in Canada is undergoing more than a few changes – rising star Esa Khattak is head of the community policing section and from his station in Toronto, he has more than a few challenges ahead
Christopher Drayton has been found dead at the bottom of the bluffs in Scarborough, just outside the city.Tom Paley at the Justice Department asks Khattak look further into Drayton as everything may not be as it seems.
Their investigation takes them to a disturbing link to the Bosnian community in Toronto and the Bosnian stain on the West’s conscience as Yugoslavia collapsed around them.
Travel Guide
Toronto – Scarborough
The setting for the novel and the backdrop too since Canada’s Community Policing Section (CPS) is here which looks into cases involving ethnic minorities.
Christopher Drayton has been found dead, an accidental fall from the cliffs near his home. These cliffs are part of a hiking trail used by the locals with the spot Cathedral Bluffs a particular landmark. Could it really be just the erosion which has made this area dangerous?
A museum set up to commemorate Andalusia also plays a significant role in the story – fictional sadly but it stands out in the story:
“The Andalusia museum wasn’t just a museum: it was a house drawn from the rural architecture of southern Spain where international spaces outward in a marriage of gardens and stone. In Scarborough it was impractical at best..”
Bosnia and Herzegovina
The lives of her main characters are interwoven with the horror of the 1990s Bosnian War. The 1995 genocide committed at Srebrenica by the Serbs is the horrific focus, as the history of how systematic rape and ethnic cleansing took place in plain sight of a world which seemed to turn a blind eye.
Srebrenica
Srebrenica like Sarajevo had suffered a three-year siege. In Srebrenica, civilians kept alive by a trickle of UN aid ultimately became victims of genocide. In less than 24 hours safe area Srebrenica had been depopulated of its Muslim inhabitants: women and small children forcibly evacuated under the eyes of the Dutch battalions stationed there, men and boys murdered in their thousands.
“We will not reward the aggressor with the carve-up of Bosnia, redrawn along ethically purified lines”
“And yet they had”
Booktrailer Review
Susan: @thebooktrailer
For a debut novel, this was ambitious but I’m so pleased the author took that leap of faith as she’s produced a meaty read and one which is both police procedural, mystery, relevant and historically intriguing
The characters plot and setting are unique – lead character is a Canadian Muslim police investigator, Khattuck, whose recent case turns out to the death of a man who used to be a Bosnian Serb war criminal. So many people from that time must have fled in the same way and are now leading new lives. Quiet, and picturesque Scarborough seems as unlikely a place as any and the contrast between here and Bosnia emphasized a world torn apart.
You can tell this novel is written by someone who not only knows but cares about the subject – Ausma has a Ph.D. in international human rights law, specializing in military intervention and war crimes in the Balkans. I did feel that the novel often read more as an informed text that a novel at times – there is along list of references and document links at the end of the story, after the author’s note on the background history so there is a sense that this is a novel to be read slowly and seriously. A mystery novel is a good way of bringing a subject like this to the literature world even if the history does override it at times.
Having said that, if this is the first novel, I want to read the rest as the premise and the overall subject matter is a unique one and it deserves a read to learn and gain horrifically realistic insights into the trauma and consequences of a country breaking up and how it affects it people, both then and years later.
This really is a book which makes you think and which lingers long after you’ve read it.
Booktrail Boarding Pass: The Unquiet Dead
Author/Guide: Ausma Zehanat Khan Destination: Scarborough, (Toronto ), Bosnia, Srebrenica Departure Time: 1995, 2000s
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